Time Signature Waking up the dead...

Genre: hard rock / traditional metal

Maggie's Madness is another one of those obscure metal bands from the 80s who reformed recently and have started to released albums again. In their heyday, Maggie's Madness released three albums (one under the name Wild Cat). And now they are waking up the dead with an album aptly entitled "Waking Up the Dead".

According to their promo material, most of the material on this album was written back in the 80s, and recorded in 2014. So, to some extent, this is authentic 80s metal and hard rock in a 2014 wrapping. In the opening track 'Walking Up the Dead', Maggie's Madness describes themselves as rock 'n' roll zombies, so they debunk the stereotype that Germans have no sense of humor. The tracks on the album fall somewhere between hard rock and traditional metal, with some tracks being all out metal and others drawing on a rawer and dirtier, but also uplifting, hard rock style (such as the appropriately titled 'Bound to Rock On'). There are also a couple of ballads such as the nicely bluesy 'I Won't Back Down'.

The music and performance are characterized by a certain rawness, which the husky vocals suit pretty well. It is obvious that these guys know (or knew back in the 80s) how to write catchy hard rock tunes, and the album is simply old school hard rocking fun.

Now, I know that there are some people who think that old men who rock out are pathetic. To those people I say FUCK YOU! Rock 'n' roll is for for anyone who wants to rock out, regardless how old or young they are. And these German rock 'n' roll zombies know how to rock out. I look forward to hearing more stuff from them in the future.